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"Be comfortable being uncomfortable" is a good piece of advice in life and in golf, especially when you're playing a course like Green Woods Country Club for the first time.
A charming nine-holer about 40 minutes west of Hartford in the town of Winsted, Green Woods dates to 1903, long before powerful machines could terraform smooth contours out of rough natural terrain for the purpose of creating straightforward - i.e. boring, usually - golf holes. Its opening hole, a wood-and-wedge par 4, is a perfect example of how the old ways of creating golf often yielded more interesting moments. This sporty semi-private nine benefits time and again from a lack of earthmoving, with some abrupt, exciting and occasionally inscrutable contours and tilts providing challenge and intrigue. Occasional grousing about "fairness" has no place on a course of this vintage.
Glancing down Green Woods' first fairway means struggling to determine the right distance to leave for the approach. It looks straightforward enought, until the golfer notices a sharp, fescue-covered hillside waiting to cancel any tee ball that wanders left. The green partially peeks out from its own low-left perch, well below and on a tantalizingly offset angle to the fairway.
Suddenly, the golfer has questions:
What length of tee shot will make the landing area generous enough without leaving me too long an approach?
Can I get myself a good look at the green, obscured as it is by fescue and mounds?
That bunker in the distance...can I reach it?
These are not questions most first holes pose. Thousands of courses built in the last half-century default to dull opening statements, a dead-fish handshake at best that serves to get the golfer onto the course without much fanfare. This is a missed opportunity to get the fun started immediately, to get the golfer thinking from the first swing and therefore engaged in the round. Why waste time?
While an 18-holer might leave some room for a slow start, time is of the essence at a 9-holer like Green Woods. Speaking of time, having grown up half an hour away, I am ashamed that it took me more than 36 years to finally play it for the first time, this past June while visiting my parents. I will be back much sooner, eager to feel uncomfortable on its first tee again.
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